Here with our weekly update here on social media. I hope you've been having a wonderful Christmas holiday, Christmas season. I think this is the 6th day of Christmas, and I know we're all looking forward to celebrating the new year, but there's a lot to talk about as we transition from one year to the next. We have this terrible attack on our republic through these left wing efforts to throw Trump off the ballot. 

I'll give you the latest there we have an unprecedented invasion of our country, aided and abetted by the Biden administration. I'll give you a little detail there, and perhaps what can be done about that. Plus, I'm going to go through, because it is the end of the year, Judicial Watch's key findings over the last year or so that you may not have heard about, and even if you did, you should be reminded about, because they're so important as it relates to the rule of law and the various scandals that have been buffeting America for the last few years. 

First up is the outrageous decisions in Colorado and in Maine to essentially knock Trump off the ballot based on this absurd claim that he engaged in an insurrection and is therefore ineligible under the 14th Amendment to be president. Now, first of all, he hasn't been charged with insurrection anywhere. Under law, there is a federal law barring anyone who is found guilty of insurrection from serving as an officer of the United States. 

But the 14th Amendment, even if applied, or even if it applied here, doesn't apply to Trump in the sense that it's not about the presidency. The 14th Amendment, the plain language of the 14th Amendment doesn't cover presidents. And of course, there was no insurrection on January 6. Here's another fact check for you. There was no insurrection on January 6. So there can be no finding by any fair minded body that President Trump engaged in insurrection, because it just didn't happen. 

But what happened in Colorado was the result of a Colorado Supreme Court decision. The court there is dominated. It's only Democrat appointees, and it was a four three decision even among those leftist justices. So even three justices of the Supreme Court there were skeptical of the four judge majority power grab. And even worse, in Maine, it was a democratic legislative, well, she's an appointee of the Democrat controlled legislature in Maine, a secretary of state. 

She's not an elected official. She's formerly a politician, formerly an elector for President Biden in 2020. And she just on her own power, decided to strike Trump from the ballot. Now, technically, Trump is still on the ballot in Colorado, or will be. Technically, he still is on the ballot in Maine, or in theory, will be because both cases, the court and the secretary of state in Maine, stayed their decisions pending appeal. 

And sure enough, the Colorado case has been already appealed to the Supreme Court by the Colorado state Republican Party whose rights are being violated. You know, let's take a step back here to Colorado. It's in violation of state law there because the state law doesn't allow the courts to adjudicate this. It's a violation of federal law. It's a violation of the US Constitution. And for the courts to come in or in Maine, a secretary of state to come in and really just engage in a power grab, right, seize power from the people. 

To knock a candidate off the ballot is unprecedented. Now, I want to go to the 14th Amendment because it's kind of a plain, it's easy to read, it's easy to understand. And I think we've talked about this before, section three. This is the key to section here. No person shall be senator or representative in Congress or elector of president and vice president, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any state who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature or as an executive or judicial officer of any state to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection and rebellion against the same or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. 

But Congress may, by a vote of two thirds of each house, remove such disability. So what do you see missing there? Let's go back. Bring that back up. Do you see the word president there? Look. Do you see the president? The office of the president there? I see. Elector of president and vice president. Now that's different than the president. That's someone who's designated it by the state or through in the case. 

Now, under our election systems, you vote for electowers either directly or indirectly when you vote for president, but it doesn't apply to the president. And they say, well, or hold any office under the United States. Well, officers under the United States are what? Those are appointees of the president. So it doesn't apply to the president. And then go, let's go to section five. Well, how would this even work? Right? Well, section five of the 14th amendment says the Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. 

And as I told you earlier, Congress indeed has enforced the provisions of that article, at least the section three segment by barring anyone who engaged in insurrection from federal office like that. But it doesn't apply to the president. It simply doesn't. Now, that was written. The 14th Amendment was passed, obviously, in the aftermath of the civil War. The writers of the 14th amendment knew what they were doing. 

Indeed, one of the most famous supreme court justices of all time, I think it was Chief Justice Chase. Maybe it was story. Well, anyway, I don't think it was story. It was chief justice chase at the time. He found it didn't apply to the president. And what the California Supreme Court and the secretary of state have said was, oh, we can apply this list law. And you know what the implication of that is? Anyone can apply that constitutional provision to any politician they don't like. 

So, for instance, judiciary watch, under this theory of law, could go and challenge President Biden's position on the primary ballot in New Hampshire or in Florida or in California, and say he's engaged in insurrection or rebellion by refusing to enforce immigration law or by trying to throw his opponent in jail, he's upending the rule of law, rejecting his oath of office. He's an insurrectionist. Indeed, anyone can be accused of insurrection and taken off the ballot, if this is the theory, at least by individuals in the states, private litigants, bureaucrats, like the secretary of state in Maine. 

And obviously, that can't be the law right now. What I fear will be the case is that they will say only President Trump can be removed. No one else can be. So, you know, we might think there'll be a double standard, or there is no double standard for the left. They have a single standard. Punish their enemies and protect their friends. And that's what's going on here with President Trump. 

It obviously would upend our election system. It's an attack on the First Amendment rights of citizens, the free association rights of citizens, to nominate the person of their choice to be on the primary ballot, or in the case of the general election, the general ballot. And a bureaucrat can say no because they've chosen to interpret a constitutional provision. And they say, well, there are other qualifications that you have to abide by that states can enforce. 

Well, those are straightforward ministerial issues. This is a person over 35. I mean, not a factual finding of insurrection. Trump has never been charged with insurrection. There's been no charge of insurrection related to January 6. As a matter of fact, no charge. Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department, which is pursuing unhinged prosecutions. And I'll talk about that further against Trump. They're not going with insurrection charges. They said federal law already prohibits insurrection, obviously. 

So this is a real dangerous time for America, because the left has decided that they don't want to play by the rules. And I think they've long decided that they don't want to play by the rules. But here it's quite readily apparent what's happening. They're using this provision of the Constitution or misusing it, pretending it applies when it doesn't, to try to turn the election into fundamentally a one party election. 

Right. The only candidate that you'd be able to effectively vote for under their theory is Joe Biden. Putin would recognize what's going on in Colorado. Putin would recognize what's going on in Maine, because that's what they do in Russia, that's what they do in China. That's what they do in Venezuela. That's what they do in these authoritarian, totalitarian countries. They harass their political opposition, usually imprison them, which is what they're also trying to do against Trump. 

Or find ways to keep their names off the ballot by making up violations of law and having politicized judges or officials suppress the political opposition of a regime during the so called elections. So this is about the most direct attack on free and fair elections in american history. There's nothing comparable, other maybe, than during the civil war, where you had so much violence around the elections and the threat of violence around the elections. 

But there's nothing comparable in the modern America where you've had a political party effectively endorse this power grab. And so when the Supreme Court of Colorado tells Coloradans, can't vote for Joe Biden, for Donald Trump, right, that's taking rights away from everyone else who has an interest in seeing Donald Trump being the nominee for the president. And if it applies on the primary ballot, why wouldn't it apply to the general ballot? So this is the theory that we're going to have Trump's name off the ballot and make it hard for him to win election, ironically, it may not prevent him from winning election. 

Although Maine's close enough. I don't know. Maine generally, it could possibly go to Trump. Colorado, I think, is significantly democrat and is unlikely to go towards Trump. But who knows? I mean, even in states where you lose, you want to be able to fight. The first amendment requires it. So what should be done here? Well, if we had an honest justice department, they'd be prosecuting these state officials for misconduct, for trying to interfere with our elections. 

Want to talk about insurrection? Insurrection is lawlessly abusing your power to try to keep a political opponent off the ballot. That's a violation of the civil rights of millions of Americans, and it would undo our republic. And let me be clear here, the 2024 elections are already compromised. They're compromised by this conduct here with the false allegation and smear that Trump is an insurrectionist and trying to make it more substantive. 

The charge by having politically partisan judges or secretaries of state make the finding, based on the January 6 report, YouTube videos, press clippings, really kangaroo court proceedings that have resulted in this. And then, of course, you have the charges being brought by the Biden Justice Department for noncrimes, similarly against by Fulton County Democrats for non crimes, and Alvin Bragg for non crimes. Up in New York, all Democratic Party politicians trying to jail the number one political opponent of the Democrats. 

And I don't like to go know here at judicial Watch, I try to avoid labeling parties. I mean, I like to point out philosophical differences with politicians as opposed to label party labels. But to be direct and to be truthful is to highlight that the democratic party is pushing this. This is a democratic party partisan operation. The appointees in Colorado who are abusing their power are appointees of democratic governors. 

In Colorado, it's a democratic politician who became a bureaucrat, the secretary of state, top election official there in Maine. Now, the good news is in Michigan, they turned aside. The court there turned aside, really without much comment, if at all, any comment. The left's attempt to throw Trump off the ballot there. So some courts are rejecting the invitation. Now, will the Supreme Court take up the Colorado case? I suspect they will. 

How quickly will they move? I don't know. I suspect the Supreme Court will knock all of this out. But in the meantime, Trump will have to fight. Right. You only have so much capacity when you're as a campaign or as a political party operation when you're involved in an election year. Right? And so rather than being able to run straightforward for president, in addition to having to face these outrageous prosecutions, he's having to face hurdles placed in front of him by lawless bureaucrats and judges that no other previous president has faced. 

It's election interference 101 by the left. And unless the Supreme Court steps in, others are going to knock him off the ballot. He won't be on the ballot. You won't be able to vote for Trump in certain states unless the Supreme Court does something here. And on top of that, there's this desperate effort, as we talked about before, to jail Trump before the election based on these fake prosecutions. 

Well, they're not literally fake prosecutions. They're prosecutions of fake crimes. Were non crimes by Trump. Now, you may recall that here in the District of Columbia, where they're trying to jail Trump for questioning the election, Trump made the defense that, look, I was president of the United States, and it stands to reason, given prior Justice Department position and the history and structure of the constitution, that you can't criminally prosecute me for doing my job as president, which includes ensuring the election laws are upheld and the right result is pursued in Congress. 

Now, that was rejected by the lower court. He appealed it, and the Jack Smith people were afraid that appeal would slow down their trial, which they want to have in March no matter what, because there's a political purpose to having the trial in March because it more likely ensures his conviction in the left wing district of Columbia. That's the jury pool here and potentially jailing. And Jack Smith's people, they not only are fighting it at the appellate court, but they asked the Supreme Court to skip over the appellate court review and just take it up. 

Don't wait for the appeals court to rule as you normally would in virtually every other case. Just take it up because it's an emergency. And the only emergency was they had an election they wanted to interfere with, and they wouldn't be able to do it as well if President Trump's due process rights were considered by the courts in the ordinary course. And thankfully, the Supreme Court, without comment, rejected Jack Smith's faint. 

And now the appellate court is rushing it along because it's full of anti Trumpers. So I told you about the danger to our republican system, how they want to upend our whole election system, by making it possible for virtually anyone in the country, maybe even the world, to come into court and try to get people thrown off the ballots based on allegations of insurrection, however far fetched. And on top of that, now they want to jail. 

You can go to jail as president for everything you do as president. Does that make sense to you? This is what President Trump's lawyers opened up with in the appeal of their issue about how immunity over the issue of whether immunity should be provided to the president. In this case, Trump's lawyers, and I tweeted this out, lay out the dangers of Jack Smith's political attack on our constitutional republic during the 234 years from 1789 to 2023, no current or former president had ever been criminally prosecuted for his four official acts. 

That unbroken tradition died this year, and the historical fallout is tremendous. The indictment of President Trump threatens to launch cycles of recrimination and politically motivated prosecutions that will plague our nation for many decades. To come and stands likely to shatter the very bedrock of our republic, the confidence of american citizens and the confidence of the american citizens and an independent justice system or judicial system. Under our system of separated powers, the judicial branch cannot sit in judgment over president's officials over a president's official acts. 

That doctrine is not controversial. It was treated as self evident and foundational from the dawn of the republic, and it flows directly from the exclusive vesting clause of article two in 18 three. Chief Justice Marshall endorsed it, writing in Marbury versus Madison that a president's official acts can never be examinable by the courts. The structure of our government, the text of our constitution and its early commentators, common law immunity doctrines and our political history, the Supreme Court's analogous immunity doctrines and the policy considerations rooted in a separation of powers all dictate that no president, current or former, may be criminally prosecuted for his official acts unless he is first impeached and convicted by the Senate. 

Nor may a president face criminal prosecution based on conduct for which he was acquitted by the US Senate. The indictment against President Trump is unlawful and unconstitutional. It must be dismissed. The brief later details how the Biden Smith operation is trying to criminalize Trump's privileged official presidential acts. All five types of conduct alleged in the indictment constitute official acts. They all reflect President Trump's efforts and duties squarely as chief executive of the United States to advocate for and defend the integrity of the federal election in accord with his view that it was tainted by fraud and irregularity. 

First, President Trump's public statements and tweets about alleged fraud and irregularity in the federal election fall within the outer perimeter of presidential duty. And that's a technical term, outer perimeter. That's from a prior Supreme Court decision suggesting that the president is protected, including being targeted for his duties, including those on the outer perimeter of the presidency, to which communicating with the public on matters of federal concern is absolutely central. 

This is apparently apparent. This is especially apparent with respect to President Trump's tweets. His Twitter account has been held to be an official government channel of communications based on overwhelming evidence. President Trump's other public statements are also plainly official. Second, President Trump's communications with the US Department of Justice about investigating widespread reports of election fraud and deliberating about replacing the acting attorney general are quintessential presidential acts. The president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, which include the numerous prohibitions on federal election crime directing the attorney general to enforce these fall squarely within the take care power. 

Like I wish Biden would take care that our immigration laws are faithfully executed. But he's not deliberating about whether to replace a cabinet level officer is a core exercise of the appointment and removal power. Third, communications with state officials about their exercise of official duties with respect to federal election falls within a presidential official duties. The president's take care duty includes the rights, duties and obligations growing out of the constitution itself, and all the protection implied by the nature of the government under the Constitution. 

Again, that's a quote from a case, so when I was quoting that on twitter, I was taking out the citations in their legal brief. This includes taking steps to ensure the integrity of federal elections, such as communicating with state officials who play a critical role administering those federal elections. Presidential electors exercise federal functions under and discharge duties in virtue of authority conferred by the Constitution of the United States, so the dispute about electors is something within his purview as president. 

Fourth, communicating with members of Congress, including the vice president, and his capacity as president of the Senate, about their exercise of their official duties lies at the core of presidential responsibility. The president has intimate and extensive responsibility in the legislative process. Article two specifically provides that the president recommend to Congress's consideration such measures that he shall judge necessary and expedient. That includes the executive branch making its views known to Congress on all matters in which it has responsibilities, duties, and opinions. 

Historical precedent from President Grant's intervention in the disputed Hayes Tilden election supports this conclusion. You should look up that Hayes Tilden election. That was something else. That shows you the big lie that you're not allowed to dispute elections. Trump's legal team also makes a key argument that the less failed impeachment of Trump's constitutionality of Trump constitutionally prescribes any subsequent criminal prosecution on the same issues. Now, I have to say when I first heard that Trump was or his attorneys was making the argument that because he was impeached and acquitted at the Senate trial on these issues, any subsequent pursuit of him on this would be double jeopardy. 

You can't be tried twice on the same crime, especially when you're acquitted the first time around. And I remember thinking, well, I don't know if I buy that right. Is that process substantial enough to be the equivalent of a criminal investigation or a criminal proceeding? And I think Trump, after consideration, has the better of the argument here. And it's an additional argument. The impeachment judgment clause thus protects presidents from harassing criminal prosecutions by requiring Congress first to make the political judgment that the president should be convicted. 

If, as here, the Senate acquits the president. The Senate has necessarily concluded the president should remain in office and is not disqualified from service. For a prosecutor to conclude otherwise undermines the conclusion. Indeed, a successful prosecution voids it and arrogates to himself a judgment the Constitution reserves for Congress during this Christmas season. Let's pray. And this is what I say at the end, and I think it's worth repeating, let's pray. 

The Lord showers the DC appeals court with the gifts of wisdom, discernment, and courage to confront and stop the Biden regime's assault on the very structure of our constitutional government. For as the DC appeals court is notoriously political and reflexively anti Trump, it would be truly a miracle if the rule of law prevails at this stage of the legal proceedings. And of course, no matter what happens in the appellate court, the Supreme Court will almost certainly be the next stop in this historic battle for constitutional. 

You know, I hope you paid attention as best as you're able, given my ham handed reading of the document there, the Trump's legal document, to those arguments, because those are the core arguments, not only to try to jail Trump, but also to keep him off the ballot, because a lot of this applies to the insurrection nonsense that's being pushed by the leftists in the various states. So there's a coordinated effort across the land by the democratic party and their leftist allies to destroy free and fair elections in 2024. 

Indeed, President Biden, in responding to news of the Colorado Supreme Court outrageous and unprecedented decision, said, oh, I think Trump engaged in insurrection, but I'll let the courts decide. Who's he kidding? He all but endorsed the removal of his political opponent from the ballot. Never before in american history has this type of activity taken place. So this is why we got to have the strong legal arguments. I mean, to me, the legal arguments and the constitutional arguments are readily apparent to any honest jurist. 

But as we've seen before, especially with respect to Trump, serious judicial decision making sometimes goes out the door because of, you know, and on the top of everything else our republic is facing. So we'll see what happens here again, and I'm going to repeat it. Even though some of our friends in the Congress don't like me saying this all the time, Congress can put a stop to a lot of this. 

They can defund states that are abusing the civil rights of President Trump and millions of their citizens through these prosecutions or illicit efforts to take him off the ballot. They can defund and shut down the Jack Smith investigation. Frankly, they should be investigating the Jack Smith investigation. And there's going to be another funding fight later in January. So they're going to come back from their extended Christmas vacation. 

Two weeks. Did you get two weeks off for Christmas? And there's another funding deadline, at least the first of which I think is in January. January 19. Right. So you're going to see all these Republicans in the House criticize what's going on with Jack Smith or what's going on in Maine and Colorado, yet they'll do nothing in terms of the power of the purse to restrain federal funding for that. 

In the case of Jack Smith, they could shut it down completely by denying funding for that operation. The states, it would be more indirect. They would say, we don't want any part of it, and we're going to pull back federal funding because of your abuses or tie federal funding to your respect for the Constitution and the civil rights of President Trump, to deny Trump access to the ballot and the american people access to vote for the person of their choice in a lawless. 

We, of course, Congress has a positive obligation to ensure no tax dollars are going towards that abuse. And similarly, why are they funding the invasion? Speaker Johnson has been calling out on Twitter and elsewhere, President Biden's invasion. I'm sure you've been watching the news. I mean, even the mainstream media is covering the deluge, the flood of aliens illegally crossing the United States. Numbers never seen before in american history. 

Numbers never seen before in the history of humanity. Millions crossing the border. And then we use our tax dollars to fly and bust them throughout the land and settle them all over the place. They just released the most recent numbers for the last fiscal year. I guess the fiscal year goes through the end of. Was the beginning of October or the end of October? It's October to October, right? Of the 2. 

5 million encounters at the border, the southern border, the Biden administration has only deported 5. 7% of them. That's how I analyze the numbers. And since October, obviously, there's been another, I think there's been another 2 million or so since October. I've seen various numbers to how many have flooded across the border since Biden's come in? 10 million, 6 million, 7 million. I don't know exactly what the number is, but it's an astronomical number, and Congress is just whistling past a graveyard on it. 

And the republican controlled House fully funded the Biden operation that allows these people to come across the border. They can change the law, change the funding mechanism to prevent the use of monies to fund the invasion. Now you say, well, how can they do that. It's only one house of the Congress that the Republicans have control of. Yes, but unless that House votes to fund the government or an agency, that agency can't operate. 

That's the leverage that the Republicans in the House, or at least the leadership has refused to exercise to save the country. Our country is going to be mean. Our republic is under attack in so many ways and many of our friends complain about it on the hill. But are funding know? Part of Judicial Watch's work is to work with Congress where we can. We provide them information, the material that we get and encourage them to do the right thing as best we're able. 

But you can see why Congress is just not something I enjoy dealing with because I know what they can do and what they refuse to do. They're always impressed that judicial watch is able to get the documents that we are able to get, which is great. I mean, we get documents Congress often can't get. But their competitive advantage with judicial Watch is shutting the whole thing down. You don't give us the documents, we'll shut you down. 

You violate the law, we'll shut you down. All judicial watch can do is put it on a silver platter saying this is what's going on. What are you going to do about it? So I'm done. I'm done covering and excusing, not that I really ever did, but I'm not doing it. I'm not going to do it. When Congress does the right thing, I'll praise them. And when they do the wrong thing, I'm going to criticize them no matter who's running the show. 

And right now the Republicans running the House are failing the american people. We have an invasion that they've fully funded. We have this attack on our fundamental freedoms, our civil rights and our election systems through the Biden Justice Department as democratic party allies. That they fully fund mass censorship, that they fully funded, you name it, the Defense Department funding. They just funded the Defense Department fully. No check on the attack on our system, on the attack on our military by the cultural Marxists who are running the military, trying to alienate our troops from the America, the country that they're supposed to be defending, misusing tax dollars to kill unborn children or mutilate troops and their family members through this transgender extremism. 

That's a major project at the Defense Department, fully funded by Republicans in the House, just to be clear, Republicans, so Judicial watch will recall, you should know, is independent. We're nonpartisan. The left doesn't understand. Well, judicial watch how you're conservative and you say you're nonpartisan. Well, it's because when someone says that, they're ignorant. Nonpartisan means we are not affiliated with a party. We're independent of political parties. So we need leadership from both political parties. 

And I don't excuse the democrats. I mean, if you're an honest Democrat, why are you letting communists run the show in your party? If you're a Republican, why are you letting fearful politicians, cowardly politicians run your party? If you're patriots, you need to step up and let people know what you think. And you provide the leadership through your God given first amendment rights to petition your government that the left is trying to destroy. 

And you don't want to exercise those rights. Now, you may not have them a year or two or three or four from now because they've been decimated. So you can be sure judicial watch keep on doing what we do to ensure the government isn't corrupt. Uncover what the government's up to, stop it where we can through litigation. But it's a big job, and our councils of government need to step up. 

Now I'm all angry, right? I was going to go in and celebrate some of our victories over the last year, but I'm ticked. So judicial watch files litigation. Those of you who don't follow judicial watch, we are a government watchdog group. We're an educational foundation, and we educate the public by exposing what the government's up to, putting it out there, using litigation to expose what the government's up to, and hopefully stop the government from engaging in government corruption and abuse. 

So we help whistleblowers, we help victims of government misconduct. We protect the civil rights of american citizens. I would say judicial watches, America's number one civil rights watchdog group because the left is anti civil rights. There used to be groups that supposedly were in favor of civil rights. They've abandoned that. And one of your core rights is the right to vote. Right. And I would submit the right to vote is contingent on ensuring that your elections are honest. 

Right. Because if your elections are unhonest, your right can be easily negated by illegal voting or you're less likely to participate in a system. And no one's going to think the elections have any meaning or merit because they think they're too easily rigged. Because the rules allow for the potential of fraud. You don't have to have actual fraud. You can have potential fraud to undo elections in terms of having the results be respected by the populace. 

If people think elections are rigged, that's terrible. And sure, that's why the law puts these rules in place, to reassure people that their votes will count. And one of the rules that have been put in place is that the states need to take reasonable steps to clean up the rolls under the National Voter Registration act. And the Supreme Court, excuse me, that, yeah, the Supreme Court ratified judicial Watch's work in this area several years ago by essentially saying that, yes, it's right, and it should be the case that states need to clean up the rolls under the National Voter Registration Rights act, even if the Justice Department won't enforce it. 

And Judicial Watch was the first private group to enforce this law, that the states take reasonable steps to clean up the roles, meaning if someone moves or dies or otherwise becomes ineligible, they're removed from the list. And one of our biggest victories, and this is my time to go through some of the most significant fines and litigation successes in 2023 by your judicial watch, is the news, based on Judicial Watch litigation, that Los Angeles county confirmed the removal of 1. 

2 million ineligible voters from the rolls there. And this was the result of a judicial watch lawsuit settlement where we sued the state of California and Los Angeles county. And as part of the settlement, Los Angeles county promised to begin the process. It took several years to remove people who were inactive, people who shouldn't be on the rolls. And they confirmed in black and white. We looked at the documents, so we didn't just trust know. 

We did some due diligence to ensure that the numbers were correct, and they confirmed under the terms of the settlement. They met the terms of the settlement, that 1. 2 million ineligible voters were removed from their roles under the terms of a settlement agreement that we filed in 2017. So it took five years for us to get that full success under the terms of the settlement agreement. Los Angeles county sent almost 1. 

6 million address confirmation notices in 2019 to voters listed as inactive on its voter rolls. And essentially, if they don't respond or don't vote for two federal election cycles, they're supposed to be removed. In fact, some of these names, half of them at least, hadn't voted in the last ten years. And the problem with having people on the rolls who aren't there anymore, that's obviously a pool from which fraudsters can dip or into which fraudsters can draw. 

Especially in California. We don't have voter id, and the mail in ballots and such just make the situation worse, in my view. So part of cleaner elections is one of the necessities of ensuring cleaner elections is making sure the rolls are clean, dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections. It's simple. Does it mean that elections will be perfect as a result? No, but they will be cleaner as a result. 

So this was a long overdue voter roll cleanup in California. I mean, they had allowed 20% of their election, their rolls to get dirty, and now they're cleaner. Now there's more work to do in California. We're doing that. But this was a big victory for 2023. Shocking number. And I'm going to go chronolog as best as I could, chronologically from the beginning of the year. So that was in February. 

In March of this year, judicial Watch found. This is what I was talking about with the Defense Department earlier. We uncovered Air Force documents that are outrageous. They're documents from the Air Force Academy that focus on anti american critical race theory, training of cadets. And the documents show that our cadets are being brainwashed and abused at the United States Air Force Academy. We sued for these records. I think we sued with a group of veterans called stand together against racism and radicalism in the services stars. 

And we sued the US Department of Defense for Air Force Academy records regarding systemic racism, which is an anti american smear in Canard. And this is what they say in one of the documents. Systemic racism exists in our society. Identity groups, whether based on race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion or disability, have all experienced less than equal treatment in our nation, both historically and persisting in the present day. 

Systemic racism means that fundamental to America is racism. Everything that happens is informed by racism, by the government. Our whole military is informed by racism. And, of course, that's the basis for revolution, right? That's what makes it communist and marxist, that the institutions of America have this original sin that hasn't been erased. Racism or variations of it, whatever you want to call it, genderism or whatever other marxist term they have to disguise their revolution. 

And because our institutions are compromised, they need to be overturned. So this is a terrible development, by the way. Not only in the Air Force academy, we've uncovered similar attacks on our system and our military at the Air Force Academy and at the Naval Academy, and, no, excuse me, at West Point and the Naval Academy. So our rising leadership of our military is being force fed this anti american marxist propaganda, and judicial watch is uncovering it. 

So it's one of these things where it's like, I sure wish we hadn't found this, because I wish there was nothing to be found. But we found these terrible documents showing that there's this full embrace of critical race theory and systemic attacks on our system of government and our Constitution and the american way in our military. I think that's urgent, don't you? Also, in March, we settled another case related to election integrity. 

Colorado agreed to settle a lawsuit over ineligible voters and agreed to extensive reporting and a review of voter roll cleanup efforts. Colorado voting rolls removals increased by 78% as a result of our litigation. So we had that big case in Los Angeles County, California. We had a similar lawsuit in Colorado over their failure to clean up the roles. And they settled after they cleaned up the roles. So again, countless names removed from the roles and that we found. 

Talk about systemic. There was a systemic failure to clean up the rolls in Colorado, and our lawsuit settlement fixed it. Coming on the heels of a massive voter roll cleanup in Colorado. In California. Excuse me. Thanks to our lawsuit, this settlement agreement is a major victory for all Colorado voters. Cleaner voter rolls mean cleaner California. So this year saw a big cleanup in California and a big cleanup in Colorado. 

And there's more to come. I'll talk to you about that. So another major development this year was the exposure of gain of function research, details that will completely knock your socks off in China by the Fauci regime. This is the headline. In April. Records show funding for ecoHealth Wuhan Institute research to create coronavirus mutants. Mutants. Now, it's funny. Well, I shouldn't say it's funny, but when we've been talking about the gain of function controversy. 

Right, and what is the controversy? That the United States was funding gain of function research in Wuhan. They knew it was gain of function research. They allowed it to continue. And many are suspicious that the gain of function technique, either we trained them in through this funding process and programs and partnerships, or, more directly through the actual program itself, resulted in the creation of the coronavirus Covid. Now, do we know for sure gain of function created Covid? No. 

But we do know for sure that gain of function is dangerous, because what is gain of function? It takes a virus and makes it more likely to infect and harm human beings. And it never occurred to me to call these viruses subjected to this gain of function mutation as mutants. Mutant viruses. But it did occur to them. The Fauci people called it mutant viruses. We found 552 pages of records from the US Department of Health and Human Services that include the initial grant application and annual reports to NIH. 

That was the agency of which Fauci's agency is a subpart involving the Eco Health alliance, which was the nonprofit through which this money was funneled to China. Wuhan et cetera describing the aim of its work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China to create mutant viruses, to, quote, better predict the capacity of our Covids to infect people. Eco health plan to sequence the spike protein from coronaviruses obtained from bats for the purpose of, quote, creating mutants to identify how significantly each would need to evolve to use AcE two, which is explained as a receptor to gain entry into human cells. 

So they were specifically creating mutant coronaviruses. And this was in material that was in the possession of this agency beginning in 2013. These were applications from 2013. It. So if you're looking for a smoking gun, here you have it. And there's so much other material here. We'll have the release link below. But virtually everything we know about COVID and the Wuhan Institute and coronavirus Research and gain of function research and large measure, a lot of the vaccine. 

Controversial. The vaccine controversies is a result of judicial watch's FOIA litigation. So if you want to know why Fauci should be subject to criminal inquiries, it's because of documents that judicial watch has uncovered where we confirm they were using your tax dollars to create mutant coronaviruses in China. Well, this is an important find as well. We had a long term or long, big, long fight with Qatar. There's no other way to put it. 

The Qatar foundation was giving money to Texas a m. And we were working with our friends at the Zakor Legal Institute, Zachor, to find out how much money Qatar was given to Texas a m. Now, Qatar is a hotbed of islamic radicalism. It's been in the news a lot recently because that's where Hamas's political leadership is hanging. Mean, Qatar is a notorious supporter of terrorism. We got a big base there, too, which makes it doubly uncomfortable for the United States. 

But they've been pouring money into the american higher education for reasons that I think would be quite obvious to anyone. Why would they be pouring money? Right. You know why they're doing it. And they intervened in our FOIA lawsuit for Zakarta Legal Institute to get the detail of how much money they were given Texas A-M-I think Texas A. M. Had a. Had a. I think they even set up a campus in Qatar. 

And so Carter, they began asking for documents or money for documents about the detail there detailing the amount of money Qatar was given to Texas A and M back in 2018. So we were dealing with the Qatar foundation, who was intervening here up and down the Texas courts for years. So we were involved in fighting a foreign government, essentially to get the truth about what a us entity was dealing, was getting in terms of money there. 

Texas A and M University. And guess how much it was? $500 million. $500 million. We uncovered Qatar had given Texas A and m $500 million a public university, by the way, it, as I said at the time, now we know why. Terrace link Qatar has fought us in court to hide its financial support for Texas a m. We just found out the financial support was a half a billion dollars. 

So that was a big victory. It. So next up in our big victories in 2023 is Pennsylvania. People always say, what are you doing about Pennsylvania voting rolls? What are you doing up there? Well, we settled a lawsuit there after Pennsylvania removed 180,000 names from their voter rolls. This is from May of this year. Pennsylvania admitted in court filings it removes 178,258 ineligible registrations. In response to communications from Judicial Watch, the settlement commits Pennsylvania and five of its counties to extensive public reporting of statistics regarding their voter roll cleanups for the next five years, along with a payment of $15,000 to judicial watch. 

The five counties were Lazerne, Cumberland, Washington, Indiana, and Carbon county. And obviously, it applies statewide in the sense that all the other counties are on notice. So we're going to be able to get the numbers to ensure they're cleaning up the roles. They've already cleaned up the roles. In response to our litigation, we argue, in fact, when we first sued, they said, oh, no, judicial watch is wrong. 

And these counties that we had initially specified, they actually clean up the rolls. We said, well, you told the federal government something different. Well, they said, well, that's true, but you're mean. That's the way Pennsylvania was handling things to date. One county, Allegheny county, in response to judicial watches, inquiries in 2020, removed, I think, 70,000 names. We didn't even have to sue. They just said, you're right, we're going to remove 70,000 names. 

So last year saw the settlement with Los Angeles county. Result, 1. 2 million names, countless names were moved in Colorado and in Pennsylvania under this voting Rights National Voter Registration act. So this is an interesting story. And I know some people think, well, why are you concerned about, you know, I'm sure it's a nice dog, or was a nice dog. I don't know where he is now. But he was biting Secret Service agents. 

It was out of control. And as we uncovered, thanks to a tip, and we confirmed the information in July of 2023 that Joe Biden's dog had attacked the Secret Service ten times. Can you imagine a dog attacking? I'm sure there are many dog lovers who are watching. Can you imagine having a dog that attacked ten human beings, including one of the Secret Service agents, talked about the dog biting him on the arm like this and having grabbing his forearm like that. 

Crazy. Another Secret Service agent bitten on the back. It was a technician, I think, who showed up at Biden home in Delaware. The dog sneaked out and bit him on the back. Crazy. And back when we uncovered it back in July, the Biden people lied, said, oh, no, we're going to take care of it. Trained. And they didn't. And he bit 25 people more, I think, or something crazy like that that was exposed by NBC. 

And they finally said, okay, we're going to get rid of the dog. So this is the way the know, to me, it's kind of an indication of the way DC works. You had the president of the United States, his dog, usually, and the president and Jill Biden were present for some of these attacks, was biting Secret Service agents, federal law enforcement people who are willing to put their lives on the line. 

They're allowing their dog to bite them and not doing anything about it. And the secret Service was hiding the information. We only got this material after pushing for it through FOIA, federal lawsuit. So the Secret Service wasn't protecting their people. The Biden regime wasn't protecting their people. And of course, this is not the first instance in 2023 of the secret service, of evidence of the secret Service being misused for political purposes or being abused. 

Remember the cocaine investigation by the secret service where they, quote, couldn't figure out who left the cocaine in the White House, or the secret service potentially taking care of hunter with that gun craziness, where he threw the gun or his girlfriend threw the gun in the dumpster. And the Secret Service reportedly intervened some way. Unbelievable stuff. Which leads me to our next set of disclosures. And I think we had a few disclosures of this over the year, most recently in December, where we uncovered that the Secret Service was involved in the investigation of the drowning of Obama's chef defari Campbell, up in Massachusetts. 

You may recall when the poor guy first drowned, you wouldn't know that it even occurred on the Obama property. Well, in fact, the Secret Service was involved. We found that out. We found out also through our litigation and FOIA requests that Obama was there at the scene of the emergency response. And outrageously more recently, we just uncovered that the Secret Service had two boats, presumably there for emergencies, that they couldn't get to work when the guy went missing and drowned. 

And they had to use the groundskeeper boat to get out there. Secret service records disclose agency boats inoperable for Obama's chef drowning emergency. So you had Obama's personally being involved at the investigative level here. Secret service boats not being operable. And judicial Watch is the one who figured this all out. 2023. Now, the big news this year has been the exposure of. One of the big revelations this year has been the confirmation of the corrupted Justice Department investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden. 

The IRS whistleblowers stepping forward and saying that the investigation was obstructed. Leads weren't allowed to be followed because they were going towards Joe and other members of the Biden family. And finally, when they had a sweetheart plea deal, they brought before a federal judge. The federal judge blew it up by asking some basic questions about what the heck's going on here. I've never seen anything like this before in my life or in the history of law. 

This same Justice Department pursues laws and charges against former President Trump that have never been pursued before in the history of America. The current president and his family are protected from serious investigation into crimes that are typically prosecuted related to mafia operations, racketeering, money laundering, bribery, et cetera. And Biden's been caught lying time and time again about his involvement in all of this. And the left says, well, there's no know the evidence is Biden's lying about it. 

He said, hunter did nothing wrong. I had no contact with his business partners. I never talked to him about business. All of that has been proven as lies. So every changing story, every time he changes his story, the story gets blown up as a lie. And one of judicial Watch's biggest disclosures to date is the fact that Joe Biden, through an examination of his alias email accounts, we found that Hunter Biden was getting information about Joe Biden's meeting with, guess who, the ukrainian president when he was vice president. 

Parisma. Does that ring a bell? We found back in December. This is all in December. We had a busy December. Lawsuit uncovers 2016 Joe Biden email showing Hunter Biden copied on Ukraine President information the email with the subject line Friday schedule cards was sent by John S. Flynn, who was Joe Biden's assistant at the time. Boss. 08:45 a. m. Prep for 09:00 a. m. Phone call with President Porschenko includes an information on the number of troops who died. 

And it was cc to Hunter. Why was Hunter getting information about prep for a call with the president of Ukraine at the time? Was there a barismatai and this again was uncovered thanks to watch FOIA litigation. And it blows out of the water. As I said in this release. What did I say in the release? Blows out of the water the notion that there was any distance between Joe and Hunter Biden on the Barisma influence peddling scandal. 

And the year ended with another major victory for clean elections. Yet another. So this was what? Colorado, Pennsylvania, California? We also had a case in Illinois that settled where we gained access to voter rolls to help ensure they were cleaner. And then as the year closed, the government of DC confirmed to us that they removed 103,000 ineligible names from the voter rolls. In response to judicial watch, they've already removed 65,000 and they said they're removing 38,000. 

So it's going to be 103. And I think that's like 20 15% of the list. I mean, DC is a relatively small jurisdiction here and there are at least 73,000 more who are inactive and subject to removal. As I repeat, the federal law requires states to conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove from the official voter rolls the name of ineligible voters who have died or changed residents. 

The law requires registrations to be canceled when voters fail to respond to address confirmation notices and then fail to vote in the next two general federal elections. And so those reports of what that is. So they're supposed to report what they're doing. In that regard to the election assistance commission, we're looking at the records we're seeing. There's nothing being done. In the case of DC, evidently they were sending out the notices and not following up and removing people after they dropped off the list. 

They didn't either respond to the notice. They didn't vote for two federal election cycles. And only because we rang the bell again did they do it. But a big cleanup in DC, thanks to judicial watch. And just so you know, we warned Illinois that their roles are filthy. They need to be cleaned up. Otherwise we'll sue. And we sent the similar notice to California because despite what La county did, there's a big mess in California as well. 

And we're going to sue there unless they take urgent steps and radical steps and timely steps to clean up the roles. I mean, there's millions of names that haven't been. Well, I shouldn't say. I would suspect there's potentially well over a million names in California alone that need to be cleaned up. So another big victory. And then most recently we uncovered material from the FBI. FBI records show that the Office of General Counsel reviewed controversial targeting of traditional Catholics now, they were telling us that. 

Remember that targeting of traditional Catholics out of the Richmond office? The Richmond field office? Oh, that was just one. Was. And we stopped it as soon as we found out about it. Well, that wasn't really true, Director Ray, because Judicial watch uncovered documents, thanks to our litigation with catholic vote, that the office of General Counsel, which is DC headquarters, approved some of the targeting here. Again, Judicial watch uncovered it. 

So we ended the year exposing that maybe Ray committed perjury before Congress when he denied that anyone outside of Richmond had any practical influence on what was going on there. So not a bad year for the rule of law. Where would we be without judicial watch? Right? And if you have not made your donation to judicial watch for 2023, there's still time. And if you're seeing this after the new year, you can begin the new year. 

You can fulfill your resolution to be a better patriot and protector of our constitution by supporting judicial watch. I would submit that without judicial watch, I shouldn't say this. I don't know where we'd be without judicial watch. As a country, I'm serious about that. I'm convinced that without judicial watch, our history would be very different. In a negative way. Right. Our constitution would be weaker. Your right to know would be weaker. 

Corruption would be more rampant. It would be worse. You think it can't get worse? It can get worse. And it will get worse without judicial watch. So I encourage you to support judicial watch whether you're concerned about Biden corruption, the rule of law on elections, election integrity, immigration integrity, the craziness with China and Covid censorship, the attack on the civil rights of parents, Catholics, religion, your fundamental right to know about what your government's up to. 

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So with that, I wish you a safe and prosperous and wonderful new year. And I'll see you here next year on the Judicial watch weekly update. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and like our video down below. .